


Drifting Laughter

by januarywren



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Voldemort, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Ambition, Arranged Marriage, Childhood Friends, Everything is Beautiful and Nothing Hurts, F/M, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Friendship/Love, Hogwarts Sixth Year, Idiots in Love, Manipulative Tom Riddle, Ministry of Magic (Harry Potter), No Angst, No Smut, Obsessive Tom Riddle, POV Hermione Granger, POV Tom Riddle, Possessive Behavior, Possessive Tom Riddle, Pureblood Culture (Harry Potter), Pureblood Hermione Granger, Pureblood Politics (Harry Potter), Pureblood Society (Harry Potter), Requited Love, Romance, Sane Tom Riddle, Slug Club, Slytherin Common Room, Slytherin Hermione Granger, Slytherins Being Slytherins, Teasing, Teen Romance, Teenage Tom Riddle, Tom Riddle is Not Voldemort, Tumblr Ask Box Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-27
Updated: 2020-06-30
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:33:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24939871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/januarywren/pseuds/januarywren
Summary: “I saidno, Tom,” Hermione stressed, without looking back at her friend.Her best friend, if she were honest, the best that she’d ever had.Their familial estates had neighbored one another, and their mothers had soon become close friends. Inevitably their mother's friendship had extended into pairing their children together and gossiping over tea about what a striking pair their children made...Soulmate AU | There's only one person that matters to Tom.
Relationships: Hermione Granger & Tom Riddle, Hermione Granger/Tom Riddle
Comments: 49
Kudos: 675





	1. I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eeep, it feels nice to upload something! 
> 
> I'm sorry for going on a small hiatus - I've been having some issues lately with my health, and it's been hard to write something that I actually think is decent. (You don't want to see how many times I've deleted something from Word...😳). 
> 
> I wrote this for a request that I received on Tumblr for: "fluffy, pureblood tom/hermione, growing up together, and a betrothal"! I loved working on this, and I hope that you enjoy it. 😍💙 I'm *allllll* for Slytherin Hermione and soft Tom stories. 
> 
> And thank you so, so much for reading. Please stay safe, everyone, and if you need someone to talk to, I'm here for you. 💙💙

“I said _no_ , Tom,” Hermione stressed, without looking back at her friend.

Her best friend, if she were honest, the best that she’d ever had.

Their familial estates had neighbored one another, and their mothers had soon become close friends. Inevitably their mother's friendship had extended into pairing their children together and gossiping over tea about what a striking pair their children made.

They turned a blind eye to the way Tom pulled at her curls when she got lost in a book, or how Hermione hexed him when he was sullen, and gave her the silent treatment. Instead, their mothers cooed over how they played so well together, and how kind Tom was when he gave Hermione flying lessons when they were given their first broom. (Tom loved to fly still, while Hermione preferred to have her feet firmly on the ground, thank you very much…and her familiar, a grumbly, half-kneazle agreed with her.)

And as they aged, the pair soon found that they only needed the other for company. In fact, they preferred it that way; as they began to finish the other’s sentences, and could say in a single glance, more than their mothers expressed to each other in an hour.

No, Tom found that he had little need for a friendship with the pompous, Malfoy heir, and Hermione fled to the Gaunt manor after her father invited the Longbottoms, the Potters, the Weasleys, and the Parkinsons to her birthday party. (Her father admitted that he was outmatched, after Hermione spent her birthday with Tom, and refused to come back until the next day.)

They understood each other as no one else would, and by the time they arrived at Hogwarts, they were inseparable. “ _Mother hopes I’ll be sorted into Hufflepuff_ ,” Hermione confessed, remembering the lessons her mother gave throughout her childhood.

Helena Granger was a Hufflepuff herself, one that stressed fairness, and always doing the right thing to her daughter. “ _While Father has a galleon on the Hat sorting me into Ravenclaw, and Slytherin for you_.”

Tom glanced up from his tome, sensing the nervousness in his friend’s tone. Neither of them wanted to be apart, though they knew it was a distinct possibility. Houses rarely intermingled, their members often interacting only with each other. Anxiety filled the train car, as they sat close to each other. 

“ _Of course, he does_ ,” he said, seeing as the Gaunt line descended from Salazar himself. “ _Where else would I place, Hermione_?”

“ _Gryffindor_?” Hermione teased, giggling at his scowl.

His displeasure had never frightened her then, nor did it now, Hermione reflected. Their fears were unfounded as they were both sorted into Slytherin, to the delight of both of their families (though her father had earnestly hoped she would place in Ravenclaw, the same as he was. Her mother took the news differently, pleased that Hermione would stay with her close friend.)

“Slughorn is an odious and slimy man -“

"Creature, love?" Tom suggested a wry smile on his lips. For he, as well as the whole of Slytherin knew of Hermione's fondness for lesser creatures. She knitted colorful scarves for the house-elves and coaxed Buckbeak into eating apples from her hand as if he were a common horse that one could ride throughout the Forbidden Forest.

“Of course not!” Hermione cried, thoroughly displeased by the very suggestion. Tom stifled his laughter as he came behind her, and conjured a brush to run through her hair. He loved her dark curls, and whispered a spell, making her curls relax, and become pliant under his will. “Slughorn is awful, and you know it, Tom. I don’t want to attend one of his parties again -“

Tom hummed softly, knowing that her words were true. Slughorn was a foolish professor, one that could hardly handle a drop of alcohol, and had slobbered over Hermione, the last time they had attended one of his parties. “I heard the Minister’s nephew expressed an interest in attending,” Tom said, as he drew her curls into a soft chignon. “Perhaps he would have an interest in your ideas for reforming Wolfsbane.”

“Oh Tom, don’t tease,” Hermione said, the project close to her heart, for she was friends with Bill Weasley, and admired their professor, Remus Lupin. She saw firsthand how they both suffered when the full moon came. The Wolfsbane was increasingly ineffective and remained a costly potion to make.

“I’m serious, love,” Tom replied, resting his chin on her shoulder. “You’re the brightest witch of our age, are you not?” His gaze was soft as it met his love’s, both of them watching each other’s reflections.

“I never asked for the title,” Hermione admitted, as her cheeks colored a delightful shade of pink. She was innocent still, the only one that kept Tom from being eaten up by sheer ambition.

It was Hermione who’d slipped into his bed during their first year, and snuggled against him as they both pretended not to be desperately homesick. It was Hermione that he shared his fears and his excitement with, as they partnered together on nearly every experiment, though she refused to be his dueling partner.

“ _I don’t want to hurt you, Tom_ ,” she’d confessed, and he’d scoffed as all little boys do, as he insisted that she never would.

(She never could.)

Only the hex that she’d thrown at him _had_ hurt him and left a faint scar on his cheek still. Tom hadn't reported her to the Headmaster and agreed they would have sperate partners. It was the only time they were with someone else, the rest of their time spent entwined around the other.

Was it any wonder then, they were betrothed?

It was a dream turned reality for their mothers', as the contract was arranged in their fourth year. There would never be another for either of them, as they spent countless nights studying in the common room until Hermione fell asleep against him, and Crookshanks stretched across both their laps and snored. His familiar, Nagini, took to Hermione too, as if she were already his wife in truth.

“You deserve it,” Tom said, referring to her informal title, “more than any other.”

For she was the only one that he considered to be his equal, as fervent about magic as he was. It was more than forcing magic to bend to their will, as they sought to understand and unite with it. They wanted peace within themselves, as magic twisted and burned beneath their skin.

They knew that magic was more than wielding a wand, or casting a silly charm, as they poured through tomes on magical theory and the very history of magic itself. They wanted to understand what dwelled inside them, the same as they sought the magic that twisted and turned throughout both worlds, the familiar and the muggle.

Hermione turned her head and brushed her lips against his scarred cheek.

“Am I the only one you won’t lie to, Tom?” she asked, knowing his nature as well as she knew her own. They both would have made horrid Hufflepuffs, she thought, as their interests lay solely tangled with one another’s.

“Of course,” Tom answered, with a small shrug of his shoulders, “for you’re mine, as I am yours, Hermione.”

She would never confess the warmth that flared within her, nor the way her toes curled, hearing his words. Girls often gathered around him, especially after he became a prefect. If they thought Tom was like Draco, who was engaged to Astoria Greengrass, but entertained Pansy Parkinson’s attention, they were wrong. 

Tom knew how to cut them down with a cold word or a fearsome glare, though Hermione was pleased when he became furious over Viktor Krum’s crush on her. There was Cormac McLaggen too, and Theodore Nott, though most of their household shied away from her. They knew that Tom never liked to share what he thought belonged to him, and truthfully, neither did Hermione. (Though she made an exception when Crookshanks took to following Neville Longbottom throughout the school gardens after she discovered Neville had planted a bit of catnip for him. It was ridiculously sweet, and Hermione reminded Crooks to stay away from eating any toads, especially ones that rode on Neville’s shoulder!)

“Then what is the true reason you wish for me to come tonight, Tom?” Hermione asked, well aware that he wouldn’t attend Slughorn’s party without her.

They were well matched in their stubbornness, as all of Slytherin knew, having been exposed several o their vicious rows. Neither Tom nor Hermione ever abandoned their point of view, their arguments often resulting in Hermione stalking off to the library, with Crookshanks at her heels. Yet ever since their betrothal, there was an undercurrent of amusement when they rowed as if they both enjoyed their cat and mouse games.

And if Ms. Pince found them snogging in the Restricted Section; with his hand up her blouse, and soft moans falling from her lips, as she sat on his lap…

Well.

That was no fault of theirs.

“Perhaps I wish for everyone to know the news,” Tom said, his voice low. His words drew across her skin like silk, and she shivered at the feeling, “it’s been two years of keeping our betrothal private.”

They were in their sixth year then and rapidly approaching their seventh.

It was typical for purebloods to marry young, and both knew their families intended for them to marry after graduation. Hermione leaned back on her stool and felt how solid Tom was, behind her. "I don't know," Hermione murmured, her teeth sinking into her bottom lip. "Don't you think Slughorn will be disappointed? It seems that he needs a wife -"

Tom silenced her with his lips, as he harshly kissed her.

He tasted spring when he kissed her, as cinnamon and succulent apples danced across his tongue. She sighed against his mouth as they kissed, and she cradled his cheeks with her hands. He would always know her touch, as it made warmth curl inside his chest, a warmth that made him aware of how cold he would feel without her.

With Hermione, he was whole, and he felt as if he were home.

“I’ll go,” Hermione whispered, “Of course I’ll go, Tom, if you promise to keep Slughorn far away from me, or I’ll hex you both.”

Her sweet laughter cut through the heat of her words, and Tom chuckled, thinking of the spell he’d made _just_ for Slughorn. He liked the man even less than his fiancé did, and he would ensure he never touched Hermione again.

Slowly, Tom rested his temple against hers, “I promise he’ll keep his distance from you, my love.”

Everyone would, the same as when they were children, and hid in the wild grove. They were safe there, from the world and its chatter, as they found they only needed one another.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chat with me: https://januarywren.wixsite.com/januarywren 🌹 
> 
> https://januarywren.tumblr.com/ 🌹
> 
> and ask for me my discord! 🌹
> 
> Beta'd by Grammarly! 🦝🖤


	2. II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm still really not feeling well, but I'm grateful that writing is something I *can* do. 🤍
> 
> The comments/messages, bookmarks, kudos, etc. always cheer me up, and you guys are the sweetest readers anyone could ask for. Thank you for everything, truly. I hope that you enjoy this chapter, and it's written okay. 💙🌺

“Finally!” Hermione exclaimed, throwing herself on her fiancé’s bed. “There’s only so many times I could hear about Slughorn’s disparaging about werewolves, I mean, really -“

Tom smiled as he slipped into his bedroom behind her, and moved to sit near her feet. Hermione sighed as he gathered her feet into his lap, and gently unstrapped her kitten heels, before slipping them off of her. She’d worn them for him, the top of her curly head just reaching his shoulder still.

Neither of them was blind to the attractive pair they made, an attraction that only deepened with their contrasting natures. For while Tom charmed many to him, he was friends with none and allowed only Hermione in. There was a distance between himself and others that could never be dismantled, no matter who tried.

And Hermione was terribly earnest, almost Gryffindor like in her bold approach toward others around her. She wore her emotions on her sleeve, while always having the best intentions. Every peer knew where they stood with her, unlike with Tom, whose true feelings were never - or at least rarely, known.

Their contrast made the pair intoxicating to know, as others trailed in their wake, and often squabbled to sit beside them at meals, or pair with them on projects. Every holiday saw a plethora of invitations, though every peer knew invitations had to be issued jointly, otherwise, they would never agree to come.

Hermione often invited their peers in turn to visit her familial estate, though more than one houseguest found themselves appalled at the use of muggle inventions there. For Hermione (and Tom too, though he would never openly admit to it) enjoyed watching television and listening to the radio, all inventions that her father adored, because of his friendship with the Weasleys.

Many of their rooms were lit via electricity, though the frequent use of magic often made the bulbs sizzle, and burst, to the distress of the house-elves. They did, however, enjoy the use of the microwave, and the toaster, after Mrs. Granger took to using the inventions herself, with her husband and daughter’s encouragement. It was a shock for those who visited there, even to Tom’s own mother. The Grangers hardly saw a need to change their ways, an attitude their daughter had firmly adopted too. (And if anyone challenged her on it, Tom silenced them with _the_ look, one that he’d mastered as a prefect.)

Holding her feet in his lap, Tom began to knead her tender skin; knowing how her feet ached. He’d kept his promise to her and kept Slughorn from coming near her, aside from when they’d entered the soiree. They’d had to greet him then, and allowed for a picture to be taken with him before they’d began to circle the room.

Tom’s gaze became tender then, as he regarded his long-time friend, and his first, and his last love.

Hermione had charmed the Minister's nephew, in the same manner, that she'd charmed him as children, and soon had him eating out of her hand. There were others too, students from other Houses that held Slughorn’s favor, doddering academics who were once brilliant in their field, and other employees from the Ministry. The last interested him the most, though Tom and Hermione courted them all as if the world itself would be offered to them.

It could be - It would be. 

Anyone could open a door for them in the future, any one of them could prove to be an ally. Anyone could ensure that both of them were remembered and proposed for a position, or placement, and the Minister's nephew was the most taken one of all when he was charmed by the pair, even when Hermione hinted toward her ideas about Wolfsbane, and the future of werewolves.

“They aren’t monsters,” Hermione continued, slightly mollified as Tom massaged her feet. “Lupin never asked to be cursed, _none_ of them did.”

“I know, love,” Tom soothed.

Hermione shivered as he worked on a tight knot, his fingers as gentle as they were firm. “We’ll change things, won’t we, Tom?” she looked back over her shoulder, with her curls in disarray. She was a pretty picture, one that Tom wanted to have around him without end.

“We’ll make a difference for Lupin and others like him. We won’t -“ Hermione swallowed, and he knew what she was thinking of. Who she was thinking of. “We won’t abandon them.”

Hermione often helped Pomfrey in the infirmary, brewing potions when the nurse was overwhelmed, and visited patients who had no other visitors. It was how she met a young first-year, one who was forcibly turned, and separated from his classmates. There was little they could do for him, once Wolfsbane proved ineffective.

His guardian hadn't understood and insisted that something _could_ be done.

Yet there was nothing, besides the moments Hermione spent cheering up the boy with chess and reading aloud from muggle books that could help him, though they were only distractions and not a cure. Pomfrey openly admitted the boy had little chance of a future, not with the current laws in place. He would always be a dog on a leash, provided he survived to adulthood. 

Months later, his guardian had removed him from the school, and Hermione had cried on Tom’s shoulder after. “ _He’s just a child_ ,” she’d told him, and he knew from seeing the boy himself, that he would find little place in the wizarding world, “ _and there’s nothing Tom, nothing we can do_ -“

She was melancholy for weeks after, until Tom brought her a letter from the child. “ _He hasn’t forgotten you_ ,” Tom cooed, and it was true as the two kept in correspondence still.

“We’ll make everything right,” Tom agreed. “The Minister’s nephew believes a position with the Department of Magical Law Enforcement could secure me a place on the Wizengamot within a few years.”

At Hermione’s raised brow, Tom smirked.

“More than two but less than five.”

They both knew how slow the Ministry could be, and the false promises those connected with it often made. Yet those with a personal relationship to the Minister and his relations were often favored at a far quicker and reliable rate. “A place on the Wizengamot,” Hermione repeated, testing the words on her tongue. “Your mother would be so proud.”

“Mhm,” Tom acknowledged, as he shrugged out from his dress robes, "and think of how furious it would make my uncle and grandfather."

Hermione rolled on to her back and watched him with her whiskey-colored eyes. "They're fools," she said, her disdain for his relatives clear, though she loved his mother like she loved her own. "They don't know you, Tom, and they don't deserve to."

“Not as you do,” Tom purred, moving to rest beside her.

With any other girl, he wouldn’t have meant the words, no.

He traced circles across her collarbone, reveling in the softness of her skin. Moments when they lay beside one another, without words between them, yet content, all the same, were his favorite. They were the memories he used when casting a Patronus, the fox that burst free from his wand blinding in its purity.

It often played with Hermione’s own Patronus, the otter that she conjured chattering happily, as it ran in circles with the laughing fox. It was a sight that no one would ever see, but Tom and Hermione.

No one else deserved to.

Hermione was the one to practice conjuring a Patronus with him, as they spent hours in the Room of Requirement, and became drunk on the firewhiskey they’d acquired from a helpful house-elf. (Only Tom was able to convince Hermione that elves wanted to serve, and felt happy because of their work, to the relief of their fellow House mates…)

They’d fallen on the wool rug, both of them laughing as the otter and the fox swirled around them and played their silly games. It was nothing like the Patronus lesson they learned a year later in class, the lesson having little comparison to their own experience. Hermione, his Hermione, made him feel warm when nothing else did, and no one else could.

They were both quiet as their hands entwined and rested in her lap before Tom broke the silence. “What do you wish for, Hermione?” he asked, knowing perfectly well the ring that hid in his bottom drawer, “After graduation.”

_What can I give you?_

“A handful of children and a social calendar filled with tea parties and galas,” Hermione teased, as she kissed the underside of his jaw. “If I said anything else, our mothers would scold me for it.”

Tom gathered her closer still, and she heard as his soft chuckle.

“Do you think their wishes matter to me?”

“You’re the heir -“

“As are you,” he countered, with his lips curling into a lazy smile. “We could both be like the Malfoys or the Greengrass’s, where I’ll make love to you in the gardens, obsessed with getting an heir and a spare, before leaving you to your parties and countless dress fittings. You’ll have a delightful hobby of breeding kneazles, while I’ll succeed as school governor, and create every regulation I can, concerning the length and material of Quidditch brooms allowed at Hogwarts, and the exact hem for school robes.”

“I’ll be pompous and foul-tempered, and we’ll only see our children at breakfast, before whisking about our terribly, _terribly_ , busy,” he stressed the word, while his dark eyes danced with a cruel, mocking sort of humor, “days of avoiding one another, aside from our trips to Gringotts to fawn over our galleons, and our cursed family jewelry, that no muggle-born could dream of having."

“Tom!” Hermione nipped at her lip, attempting to repress her laughter.

Only she couldn’t, and the room soon filled with peals of warm laughter. No one could make her laugh as Tom could, no matter how many pranks the Weasley twins pulled off before dropping out of school. (Though Hermione could freely admit to giggling when Pansy ate one of their laced chocolates and turned into a squealing pig during charms class…and of course, she’d helped to revert her back afterward.)

"Do you know," she said, with rueful wonder dripping from her tone, "I don't think our mothers would mind at all if we lived like that.”

“They wouldn’t,” Tom replied, “Though your mother would encourage you to patronize a charitable cause or two, as society would expect you to.” There were rules for purebloods, male and female alike, and he knew that Mrs. Granger knew them as well as his own mother did.

“What do you expect from me, Tom?”

She turned her head away as if she feared what his reply would be. (Oh, how he knew of her dreams, as they simmered in her heart.)

“I expect nothing from you.”

No.

That was a lie.

“I want you to be yourself with me,” he said, “as you always have. I want you to be happy -” as his father never was with his mother. The thought made his stomach twist, and his teeth sank into his cheek, drawing blood to the surface.

_Please, be happy with me_.

"Oh Tom," Hermione murmured and scooted up on the bed until her gaze met his. Her eyes were filled with a gentle warmth, one that she always reserved for him. “I always am, with you.”

He cradled her face then and kissed her as if he loved her.

He did, he did -

Without end. 

“I don’t want to breed kneazles or hippogriffs,” she admitted, and he felt her smile against his lips. “I…I dream of having a sanctuary, somewhere where neglected and abused magical creatures can be free. Somewhere they’re safe, and happy, no matter what Minister is in power.”

She didn't want to work at the Ministry or spend her time solely in society, attending every gala and soiree while their children were left at the manor, with only the house-elves to accompany them. "I want to have a family with you," Hermione continued, admitting things she never had before, "and love them in their own right, not as an heir and a spare. I want a life with you, one that will never end.”

“Do you know,” Tom mused, repeating her words from before, “I find myself wanting that too, Mrs. Riddle.”

And by the gods, they would have it, and everything, and anything else they wanted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chat with me: https://januarywren.wixsite.com/januarywren 🌹 
> 
> https://januarywren.tumblr.com/ 🌹
> 
> and ask for me my discord! 🌹
> 
> Beta'd by Grammarly! 🦝🖤


End file.
